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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="14255391" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="robert-sinners" source="Orion">Robert Sinners</keyword> said he and others were "useful idiots" for taking part in the phony 2020 <keyword id="13014206" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="electors" source="Orion">electors</keyword> plan.</li><li>Sinners, who now works for <keyword id="12045648" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brad-raffensperger" source="Orion">Brad Raffensperger</keyword>, was the Trump election day operations director in <keyword id="11931393" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="georgia" source="Orion">Georgia</keyword>.</li></ul>Robert Sinner, a former campaign staffer for <keyword id="11914386" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="donald-trump" source="Orion">Donald Trump</keyword>, during an interview with January 6 investigators lamented that he and others who sought to assemble fake electors to push the election in the former president's favor were simply "useful idiots" for taking part in the plan.While speaking with investigators, Sinners — who was the Trump election day operations director in Georgia — expressed displeasure with the scheme to overturn now-President <keyword id="99719" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="joe-biden" source="Orion">Joe Biden</keyword>'s 2020 victory in the Peach State."We were just kind of useful idiots, or rubes at that point," he said in a video recording that was shown during the January 6 committee hearing on Tuesday.When told by an investigator that former Trump campaign officials Justin Clark, Matt Morgan, and Josh Findlay were unwilling to take part in convening fake electors, Sinners said he was "angry" at the situation."I'm angry because I think in a sense no one really cared if people were potentially putting themselves in jeopardy," he said. Sinners also said he wouldn't have participated in the convening of the electors had he known that Trump officials had not stood behind the plan."I absolutely would not have had I known that the three main lawyers for the campaign that I'd spoken to in the past and were leading up were not on board," he said.Since the aftermath of the failed electoral plan, Sinners — who is now employed in the office of Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — has sought to distance himself from his activities with the Trump campaign in Georgia during the <keyword id="12175515" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="2020-presidential-election" source="Orion">2020 presidential election</keyword>."Following the Former President's refusal to accept the results of the election and allow a peaceful transition of power, my views on this matter have changed significantly from where they were on December 13th," <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/06/fake-trump-electors-ga-told-shroud-plans-secrecy-email-shows/">he said in a statement</a> to The Washington Post earlier this month.Biden <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-wins-georgia-democratic-party-south-presidential-election-2020-11">won</a> Georgia by roughly 12,000 votes in the 2020 election, a victory that Trump has continued to dispute despite there being <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11">no evidence</a> of electoral fraud.

Former Trump campaign staffer was angered by role in phony 2020 electors plan: 'We were just kind of useful idiots'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>GOP gubernatorial nominee <keyword id="12345154" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="david-perdue" source="Orion">David Perdue</keyword> proposed a new election police unit in Georgia, <a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/perdue-calls-for-special-election-police-unit-in-georgia/PY7Y7QDMUBBMVGPO2DHUNTF2ZA/">per the AJC</a>.</li><li>Perdue, who has backed Trump's debunked election claims, is following the lead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.</li></ul>Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate David Perdue on Thursday pledged to create a new police unit that would probe <keyword id="12026655" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="voter-fraud" source="Orion">voter fraud</keyword>, forging ahead with a direct appeal to supporters of former President <keyword id="11914386" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="donald-trump" source="Orion">Donald Trump</keyword> who continue to question the validity of the 2020 presidential election, <a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/perdue-calls-for-special-election-police-unit-in-georgia/PY7Y7QDMUBBMVGPO2DHUNTF2ZA/">according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution</a>.Perdue — who served in the US Senate from 2015 until January 2021 and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/david-perdue-challenge-brian-kemp-2022-georgia-governor-republican-nomination-2021-12">launched</a> an intraparty campaign against Gov. <keyword id="12285105" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brian-kemp" source="Orion">Brian Kemp</keyword> last December with the support of Trump — said that the law enforcement unit would "give Georgians confidence that only legal votes will be counted."Perdue also said that he would push for state election results to be "independently audited" before certification.Kemp — a onetime ally of Trump — has been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/brian-kemp-trump-georgia-voting-machines-raffensperger-election-2020-11">castigated</a> by the former president for over a year for certifying the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, which the governor was required to officiate by law after now-President <keyword id="99719" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="joe-biden" source="Orion">Joe Biden</keyword>'s victory in the former Republican stronghold.Perdue's push to establish an "Election Law Enforcement Division" in Georgia came during the same week that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida unveiled details for a election police force, which elicited broad opposition from Democrats.DeSantis has asked state lawmakers to provide $5.7 million for the new unit, which would give the state's executive branch increased power over election investigations, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/ron-desantis-pushes-election-police-force/index.html">according to a CNN report</a>.The proposal from Perdue comes as the Republican candidate has continued to rail against Georgia's election administration, calling for absentee ballots to be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/david-perdue-georgia-lawsuit-2020-election-results-fulton-absentee-ballots-2021-12">inspected</a> in Democratic-heavy Fulton County and insisting that he would have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/david-perdue-says-he-wouldnt-have-certified-the-georgia-2020-election-2021-12">declined</a> to certify the state's election results if he had been governor.In 2020, Biden <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/georgia-presidential-election-2020-live-vote-counts-results-2020">defeated</a> Trump in Georgia by 11,779 votes out of nearly 5 million ballots cast; the president received 2,473,633 votes, or 49.5%, while Trump earned 2,461,854 votes, or 49.2%.Trump has relentlessly inserted himself into Georgia <keyword id="11893346" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="politics" source="Orion">politics</keyword> — even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-brad-raffensperger-phone-call-georgia-votes-presidential-election-2021-01">pushing</a> for Republican Secretary of State <keyword id="12045648" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brad-raffensperger" source="Orion">Brad Raffensperger</keyword> to "find" votes to overturn Biden's statewide victory — and backed Perdue's candidacy after Kemp refused to entertain the former president's election-related pressure campaign."Leave it to a 20-year career politician like Kemp to sit on his hands when we needed him most," Perdue said on Thursday in criticizing the governor. "He failed us, and Georgians lost confidence that their vote would count."It is unclear how the new police unit would be structured, but Perdue said that it would look into election crimes and give Georgia voters a sense of security regarding the integrity of the vote.After three presidential ballot counts in Georgia and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-campaign-lawsuits-election-results-2020-11">the failure of multiple lawsuits</a> initiated by Trump campaign attorneys in court — along with conspiracy theories centered on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-georgia-rally-attacking-vote-integrity-senate-runoff-elections-2020-12">illegal ballots in suitcases</a> and deceased voters <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-said-5000-dead-people-voted-georgia-only-4-cases-2021-12">participating</a> in the election — no evidence of mass voter fraud has surfaced in the critical swing state.Last year, the Republican-controlled legislature passed <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20527915-sb-202-as-passed">the Election Integrity Act of 2021</a>, or SB 202, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/geoff-duncan-georgia-republicans-election-voting-law-trump-book-2021-9">highly-controversial voting law</a> which restricts ballot drop boxes to early voting sites and limits their usage to voting hours, and narrows the window for requesting an absentee ballot, among other measures.Kemp spokesman Cody Hall last week told the Journal-Constitution that Perdue's plan shows that "his entire campaign is a lie.""His proposal recognizes that governors have no legal authority in the oversight, administration or investigation of elections under current state law and constitution," he said.In November, the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary will face former Democratic state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams — one of the nation's most prominent voting-rights activists and the party's gubernatorial nominee in 2018. That year, Kemp <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/georgia-governor">narrowly defeated</a> Abrams by a 50.2%-48.8% margin, or 1.4 percentage points.The results produced <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/us/elections/georgia-governor-race-kemp-abrams.html">the smallest margin</a> in a Georgia gubernatorial election since 1966.

Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate David Perdue proposes an election police force to investigate voter fraud

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="1575" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Congress">Congress</keyword> likely won't weigh in on the growing threat of election subversion in the states. </li><li>States are passing laws criminalizing and politicizing the election and vote-counting process. </li><li>Experts suggest standardizing vote-counting procedures and reforming the Electoral Count Act.</li></ul>Congress will almost certainly sit out the ongoing high-stakes fight within states over how people vote, and who has power over how elections are run.The Senate is gearing up for a showdown over <keyword id="93452" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Voting-rights">voting rights</keyword> and the filibuster at the end of June, amid the backdrop Republican state legislators passing an unprecedented number of laws tightening rules for voters and election officials.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is bringing the For The People Act (known as HR. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate), Democrats' 800-plus page flagship voting rights and democracy reform bill, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/555977-schumer-to-force-vote-on-sweeping-election-overhaul-next-month">up for a floor vote the week of June 21.</a>The chances of Congress passing that legislation went from extraordinarily slim to none after moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin formally came out against the bill <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/manchin-voting-rights-bill-for-the-people-act-elections-2021-6">in a June 6 op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.</a>Within the current Senate filibuster rules (which Manchin also supports), the bill, which has no GOP support, would need Manchin and at least 10 Republican votes to pass the US Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mcconnell-opposes-manchin-murkowski-bill-restoring-voting-rights-act-2021-6">also threw cold water on H.R. 4</a>, Manchin and Sen. Lisa Murkowski's proposed bipartisan alternative to the For The People Act that would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. Democratic politicians and civil rights advocates have largely criticized the bills and Manchin's refusal to sign on to S.1 by framing them <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/26/statement-by-president-biden-on-the-attack-on-the-right-to-vote-in-georgia/">in the language of voter suppression</a> instead of electoral subversion.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-election-audit-trump-update-doj-2021-6">The Justice Department is scrutinizing Arizona's pro-Trump vote audit as threats of violence and political fallout loom</a>Much of their messaging has zeroed in on the implications for the voting process, like new provisions in GOP-backed state laws that add new ID requirements, tighten the rules to vote by mail, and limit who can give out food and water to voters in line.By <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/annotated-guide-people-act-2021#t3-top">loosening voter ID rules and expanding early and mail voting</a>, S. 1 would invalidate many of the provisions in new GOP-backed laws that place stricter rules on voters. But, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/opinion/republicans-voting-us-elections.html?action=click&amp;module=RelatedLinks&amp;pgtype=Article=Article">as numerous scholars</a> and <a href="https://washingtonmonthly.com/2021/06/09/how-to-safeguard-elections/">analysts have pointed out</a>, those changes to the voting process have overshadowed the more insidious trend of lawmakers seizing control over the voting and vote-counting process away from local election officials. <div type="image" title="Louisa Boyer, a provisional election judge, reviews paperwork at a voting center in Baltimore, MD" height="1000" width="2000" msid="83523982" hostid="261"></div><h2>Election subversion is an emerging threat. </h2>A <a href="https://statesuniteddemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Democracy-Crisis-Part-II_June-10_Final_v7.pdf">June update to a report</a> from Protect Democracy, States United Democracy Center, and Law Forward identified 216 GOP-backed proposed state laws in 41 states that criminalize aspects of the election administration process and give partisan officials more control over how elections are conducted and certified.As of early June, 24 of those laws have been signed into law and enacted in 14 GOP-controlled states.That's in addition to controversial<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/10/trailer-arizona-model-republicans-trek-phoenix-planning-2020-election-audits-back-home/"> GOP-backed efforts</a> with highly dubious methodology to review already-audited election results in places like Maricopa County, Arizona that could be replicated in other states. The provisions in the new state laws would impose new civil and criminal penalties on election officials, strip executive authority over elections from governors and secretaries of state, and give partisan state legislatures more power to meddle in election administration - and, in some cases, determine or even overturn election results. Neither S.1 or H.R. 4 address those more dangerous provisions that politicize the work of US election workers and set them up to face potential criminal charges. In Texas' bill, for example, it would be a felony for an election official send an absentee ballot application to a voter who didn't request one.While the For the People Act does include measures to protect the integrity of election results, like requiring states to use voter-verifiable paper ballots and allocating federal grant money for voting technology upgrades and risk-limiting audits, neither that bill nor H.R. 4 set standards to protect election officials and election results from partisan manipulation. "We have to remember that HR. 1 was almost entirely written in 2018 and 2019 pre-COVID, pre-2020 election," David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, told Insider. "It addresses perceived problems with the system that existed back then, and we've all been through a lot since then. It was changed virtually not at all before introduction in this Congress again." The New York Times editorial board, which had previously endorsed S. 1, called it "poorly matched to the moment" <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/opinion/voting-law-rights-congress.html">in a June 4 editorial</a>, arguing that "the legislation attempts to accomplish more than is currently feasible, while failing to address some of the clearest threats to democracy, especially the prospect that state officials will seek to overturn the will of voters."<div type="image" title="Demonstrators protest proposed election reform bills at the Texas state capitol" height="1000" width="2000" msid="83523987" hostid="261"></div><h2>Congress could make vote-counting more "ministerial." </h2>Georgia's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/georgia-new-election-law-means-for-voters-and-officials-explainer-2021-3">omnibus election bill SB 202</a>, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in late March, demotes Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger from the chair of the State Elections Board to a non-voting member, gives the Board more authority to discipline and temporarily remove local election officials, and bans local officials from accepting private grants to help run their elections.Texas' Senate Bill 7, which state House Democrats <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/texas-democrats-hold-walkout-to-stop-vote-restricting-bill-2021-5">temporarily prevented from being passed in a dramatic Memorial Day weekend walkout</a>, includes 14 new criminal penalties for election officials and a controversial provision that would make it easier to overturn some elections, <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Texas-Republicans-say-lowering-the-bar-for-16240218.php">which legislative leaders are now walking back</a> ahead of a likely special session. In Arizona, a proposed budget bill <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-votes-to-strip-az-secretary-state-powers-amid-audit-2021-5">would strip Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs of the authority to represent the state</a> in election lawsuits and give that power to Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich - but only until 2023. (Both are 2022 candidates for governor and US Senate, respectively). But what could Congress do?Congress has jurisdiction to regulate the "time, place, and manner" of federal elections <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI_S4_C1_1_1_1_1/">under the Elections Clause of the Constitution.</a> Existing federal laws mainly set far more federal regulations over the voting and election administration process than the post-election vote-counting and certification process.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-salaries-steny-hoyer-income-pay-raise-2021-5">32 years old and making $31,000: Capitol Hill staffers vent about unlivable pay and how they survive in one of the nation's most expensive cities</a>Becker argued that one congressional reform to protect against election subversion for federal elections could be depoliticizing and standardizing the certification process to take the fate of election results out of the hands of individual public officials who could be subject to partisan interference and pressure. "I think it's fair to say that it would be a much better situation, at least with regard to federal elections, to render the act of counting the ballots and certifying the ballots as a more <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ministerial">ministerial</a> act. I think that would be a favor to election officials. No election official in the country wants to be in the position Secretary Raffensperger in Georgia found himself in," he said, referring to the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-georgia-brad-raffensperger-election-influencing-transcript-republicans-2021-01">infamous January phone call where Trump begged Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes</a> after Georgia's presidential election results had already been audited and recounted twice.<div type="image" title="Nancy Pelosi" height="998" width="1996" msid="83523994" hostid="261"></div><h2>Modernizing how Congress counts electoral votes is another area potentially ripe for reform. </h2>Becker and other legal experts <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/terrifying-inadequacy-american-election-law/616072/">have long called for reforms to the Electoral Count of Act of 1887</a>, which established processes for Congress to count electoral votes and resolve disputed elections.The law took center stage on January 6, 2021, when dozens of GOP lawmakers objected to fully certified slates of electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania as rioters breached the Capitol in an insurrection to try and stop the vote counting. "I think the Electoral Count Act, for an act written in the 1880s, actually held up remarkably well given the world we currently live in. But, it also clearly wasn't intended to be a way for members of Congress who simply didn't like the results to hold up the legitimate election of a president," Becker said.It allows one member of the House and one member of the Senate to raise objections to slates of electors that they claim aren't "lawfully certified" or "regularly given," a relatively vague standard. "The first problem is that that [the law] is very unclear and convoluted. And the stakes of a disputed presidential election are so high that clarity and certainty in the law are critically important, and we saw some of the price of the lack of clarity this year," <a href="https://campaignlegal.org/staff/matthew-seligman">Matthew Seligman</a>, special counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTsqjEyEgYA">said at a recent American Enterprise Institute panel on the future of the law. </a>Seligman and the other scholars suggested that Congress could update the act's language to raise the threshold for bringing an objection, narrow the grounds for objections to specific scenarios clearly laid out in the law, emphasize that Congress should defer to the outcome of state-level recounts and court challenges, and clarify the vice president's role. "The problem with the statute as it's written is that there's supposed to be this deference towards the resolution of election disputes as courts and states have resolved them, but there's no enforcement mechanism, and we saw that supposed presumption tossed out the window this year," Siegelman said.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/a-republican-controlled-congress-could-likely-not-overturn-an-election-2021-1">While the chances of Congress overturning the results of a future presidential election are probably slim</a>, the lack of clarity and relatively low bar to objecting election results leaves the law more open to partisan manipulation and abuse. "Conservatives should be particularly motivated to find a way to improve the ECA. Why? Because a Democrat, Vice President Kamala Harris, will be presiding over the electoral count in 2025," AEI resident scholar Kevin Kosar and panel moderator said at the panel on the future of the law.

Congress likely won't take action on the growing threats to election integrity, leaving election workers vulnerable to criminal prosecution and results open to partisan tampering

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Former Trump campaign staffer was angered by role in phony 2020 electors plan: 'We were just kind of useful idiots'

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Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate David Perdue proposes an election police force to investigate voter fraud

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Congress likely won't take action on the growing threats to election integrity, leaving election workers vulnerable to criminal prosecution and results open to partisan tampering

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